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Month: June 2020
Fanny Lye Deliver’d (aka The Delivered) movie review: birth of the modern woman (EIFF 2020)
Maxine Peake is stupendous in this deliciously audacious period horror, ambitious in emotional scope and with monsters who feel unexpectedly modern: men who wield religion as a tool of oppression.
My Spy movie review: and you can keep him, little girl
A “family” comedy about nuclear terrorism, the incompetent CIA agent on the case, and his 9-year-old sidekick. Desperately unfunny, thoroughly misjudged. We are in the worst and the dumbest timeline.
as I’ve been saying: YES, the cultural context and content of a film MATTERS
But now a man is saying it, so maybe someone will listen?
The Last Tree movie review: boy interrupted
An astonishingly beautiful coming-of-age story of startling specificity and intense intimacy, yet universal in its compassionate depiction of a child’s perspective dawning on mature self-awareness.
I pledge not to review any new movie available only in cinemas as long as COVID-19 remains a danger
This doesn’t mean I’ll stop writing film criticism! There are still plenty of movies, new and classic, that I can write about. But for the time being, I see no ethical way to cover films that will be available only in cinemas.
Miss Juneteenth movie review: ordinary lives drawn with extraordinary grace
A beautiful cinematic experience, delicately subtle and bursting with a gorgeous sense of place and character. There is wonderful intimate suspense in every moment of Nicole Beharie’s performance.
7500 movie review: never your in-flight movie
Mundanity builds to almost unbearable tension, but this isn’t an action movie. It’s a drama grounded in emotional realism thanks to the Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s intense empathy and vulnerable humanity.
Artemis Fowl movie review: falls foul of itself
A disaster of a kids’ fantasy caper; feels like it’s making up the plot as it goes. A mishmash of manufactured wonder: characters barely sketched, action seemingly setting up future DisneyWorld rides.
Sometimes Always Never movie review: only very intermittently
Gentle kook and visual frolicking bury emotion in this tale of a man mired in grief. Little of its head-scratching whimsy makes a melancholy landing; most just floats away on wisps of insignificance.
